Originally posted by zanzibar
That\'s nice, but how do you distinguish between IC and OOC disruption? Here\'s how I do it, and this may or may not be similar to your own thoughts:
OOC disruption:
- can involve the petition system
- can involve exploiting bugs of the game
- can involve in-game events spreading to the forums and IRC
- can involve the use or abuse of GM powers
- can involve private communications that the other part tries to avoid but cannot (ie harrassment)
So, an example of OOC disruption would be if you had a problem with someone in-game, then you started spamming their mailbox on the forums even as they ask you not to, then you make frivolous complaints to not one but many GMs about that person you harrassed.
However, IC disruption can include murder, the starting of guild wars, betrayal, rumour-mongering, fear-mongering, theft, insults which are not obviously harrassment, etcetera. IMO anyway. I welcome everyone to be critical of it.
Anything that is detrimental to someone\'s char and not previouisly agreed upon is OOC disruption. This includes challenging. For someone to be allowed to challenge some one else, they must previously (at least OOC-ly) have agreed upon that to happen.
If this does not have an RP reason, then even if it is mutually agreed upon it is OOC disruption because others will have to put up with the baseless fighting, which has already been classified as not acceptable all by itself in point 1.
Also, anything that is otherwise not RP is OOC disruption, including undesignated OOC and dropping of items, movement of chars to make fun of the game (i.e., stepping into others, especially repeatedly, jumping or doing the popular walking backwards \"moonwalk\" ).
IOW, even things that are beneficial to one\'s char can be OOC disruption, like someone dropping circles around you or even handing things over via /trade. These are another form of harassment.
All of these are easily distinguished from IC disruption, because there is no RP context for them.
In the very rare case that there actually is someone who actually acts like that IC-ly, this person would then need to ensure that it is done realistically, which does take a lot of thought and effort, like describing oneself very well and also detailing all the actions that lead up to the odd behaviour, taking into account the IC situation and reactions of the others (even if it is \"/me ignores that and proceeds to do XYZ\" ), i.e., a whole lot of /me-ing. Obviously if you are already known as good RPer you\'ll have less trouble coming accross correctly than when you\'re not known at all, but it still is far from being a trivial task. Also, consistency is key, even more than usual.
Given these clear distinctions and provided there is a proper RP reason for it, what you listed as IC disruptions I agree with to be actually IC.
As for the \"police\" guild: There is (or was) the \"Hydlaa Law Enforcement\" guild, headed by Monketh.